1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic disk apparatus, and more particularly to a carriage arm assembly used for positioning a magnetic head of the magnetic disk apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of a magnetic disk apparatus, it has been required to improve recording density thereof to increase recording capacity. For this purpose, it is important to improve accuracy in positioning a magnetic head. However, as obstacles to the improvement of the positioning accuracy, there are a positioning error due to vibration of a mechanical system caused by rotating a disk or moving a carriage arm assembly, and a positioning error caused when vibration is added from the outside of the magnetic disk apparatus. Accordingly, effective methods for reducing these positioning errors are to widen a servo band width, and to reduce the vibration caused by the mechanical system.
To widen the servo band width is greatly effected by a primary vibration mode or a main resonance mode with respect to a transfer characteristic of the carriage arm assembly, in which modes the input is defined as a force generated in a coil, and the output is defined as a displacement amount of the magnetic head in the positioning direction. This main resonance mode is the same deformation mode with the “lateral bending system mode” in a document of “Analytical and Experimental Study of the Effect of Base-Plate and Top Cover Stiffness on Actuator and Disk pack Dynamics” (Yih-Jen Dennis et al., 10th Annual Symposium on Information Storage and Processing Systems, Jun. 28 to 30, 1999), the “butterfly mode” in a document of “Active Damping in HDD Actuator” (Fu-Ying Huang et al., IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 37, No. 2., March 2001), and the “QR mode” in a document of “Development of a Single Coil Coupled Force VCM Actuator for High TPI Magnetic Recording” (Huai Lin et al., IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 37, No. 2., March 2001).
In the case of widening the servo band width, one of restrictions is a gain margin in a natural frequency of the main resonance mode (hereinafter referred to as “main resonance frequency”). If the main resonance frequency is low with respect to the servo band width, or amplitude is large, the gain margin is reduced, and in the worst case, the control system becomes oscillated, so that the positioning control cannot be achieved. In other words, it is possible to secure the gain margin to widen the servo band width by raising the main resonance frequency or decreasing the gain in the transfer characteristic. For example, JP-A-2000-48497 discloses an example in which the main resonance frequency is heightened by changing coupling method of a bearing of the carriage arm assembly so as to improve the rigidity. Further, JP-A-09-161430 shows an example which is designed so that the magnetic head is not displaced in the main resonance mode, however, the example has not been applied to an actual apparatus.
On the other hand, the vibration caused by the mechanical system during the positioning operation of the carriage arm assembly is mainly generated by excitation of each part of the carriage arm assembly due to driving force input to the carriage arm assembly for positioning the head on a target track during the moving operation from one track to another track.
Especially, a vibration mode in which in-plane bending of the carriage arm (hereinafter simply referred to as “arm”) is considered is greatly on the positioning accuracy of the carriage arm assembly because the head is disposed at an end of the arm and thus is swung around in the case of an swing type of carriage arm assembly. As this kind of vibration mode, there are the above-described main resonance mode, and an arm in-plane bending primary mode, for example. In this main resonance mode, deformation of the bearing section and bending deformation of the overall carriage arm assembly are combined. Further, in the arm in-plane bending primary mode, each of a plurality of arms deforms just like primary bending of a cantilever.
In addition, there is a problem that residual vibration in the positioning operation increases the time until starting to read/write data, so that the reading/writing speed of the disk apparatus is reduced. An example of the method of reducing the residual vibration is shown in JP-A-11-66773, which reduces the vibration using a tuned mass damper.